I am sick of King County liberals living off welfare and government spending.
Comments
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I'd say the biggest threat to the Republic is public sector unions. FDR was against them (asking the pertinent question, "how can government organize against itself?") but Ted Kennedy saw them as a slush fund for Dems since private sector unions were in decline (due to growing international trade / competition).
Thankfully smart midwestern states are seeing what happens when public sector unions run amok (Detroit) and are taking action. Public Sector Unions are a threat to limited government and thus taxpayers. Gotta love the slanted description of "Fair Share":
wgntv.com/2015/02/09/gov-rauner-signs-executive-order-allowing-state-employees-to-opt-out-of-union-dues/ -
Public sector unions killed Detroit?
And all this time I thought it was Milliken v. Bradley. -
Sure. The story is completely wrong. The people in Washington State that complain the MOST about government spending are NOT the same people that disproportionately suck off the government tit. The statistics are all a lie.HoustonHusky said:I'm just amazed that a worthless article pushing even more worthless statistics ended up in a 3 page and counting thread.
At least it is informative to see where some folks *cough* Passion *cough* get their "information"...
It's all about Passion hating farmers. Yah, right. -
I really hope you are joking. If not, do you really think that court case made Detroit go bankrupt nearly 40 years later? Da Fuq?AZDuck said:
Public sector unions killed Detroit?
And all this time I thought it was Milliken v. Bradley. -
The people who most suck off the government teat are the Public Sector Unions whose interests are only aligned with the politicians they back rather than regular voters. Regular voters in KC see their taxes go up and up while Union Bus Drivers are making over $100,000 in gross salaries.
Or how about the employees in the office of diversity for Seattle Government? They are pulling in $75k+ just in salary alone for doing jack shit.
That kind of crap has infected Seattle City Government, King County Government, and even parts of the State Government.Passion said:
Sure. The story is completely wrong. The people in Washington State that complain the MOST about government spending are NOT the same people that disproportionately suck off the government tit. The statistics are all a lie.HoustonHusky said:I'm just amazed that a worthless article pushing even more worthless statistics ended up in a 3 page and counting thread.
At least it is informative to see where some folks *cough* Passion *cough* get their "information"...
It's all about Passion hating farmers. Yah, right. -
Yes.HFNY said:I really hope you are joking. If not, do you really think that court case made Detroit go bankrupt nearly 40 years later? Da Fuq?
AZDuck said:Public sector unions killed Detroit?
And all this time I thought it was Milliken v. Bradley.
White flight happened. Detroit lost its tax base and went broke. -
Passion, you got a great bumpersticker there, maybe even enough for a snappy yard sign, but that's about as deep as it goes.Passion said:
Sure. The story is completely wrong. The people in Washington State that complain the MOST about government spending are NOT the same people that disproportionately suck off the government tit. The statistics are all a lie.HoustonHusky said:I'm just amazed that a worthless article pushing even more worthless statistics ended up in a 3 page and counting thread.
At least it is informative to see where some folks *cough* Passion *cough* get their "information"...
It's all about Passion hating farmers. Yah, right. -
No.
Detroit kept spending like a drunken-sailor like it was the 1950's and 1960's because public sector unions are corrupt and terribly difficult to roll back if a city stagnates and / or then loses population.
AZDuck said:
Yes.HFNY said:I really hope you are joking. If not, do you really think that court case made Detroit go bankrupt nearly 40 years later? Da Fuq?
And probably the most serious indictment of the Public Sector Union's early retirements and juicy pensions:
AZDuck said:Public sector unions killed Detroit?
And all this time I thought it was Milliken v. Bradley.
White flight happened. Detroit lost its tax base and went broke. -
http://archive.freep.com/article/20130908/NEWS01/309080062/Detroit-pension-13th-check-Chapter-9-bankruptcy-Kevyn-Orr
Unions are soooo eeeeevvvviilllll. Trying to get retirees $28,000/year instead of $25,000/year.
Turrible.
$1BN over twenty years during a period where cost-of-living increases and such weren't happening doesn't seem that bad.
Your other graph tells more of the story:
The population of Detroit in 1960 was 1,670,144. Detroit also had the highest per-capita income of any American city in 1960. The population of Detroit today is 688,701. So, a million more people lived in Detroit 54 years ago, and a much-larger city government existed to serve them. Those folks have retired. And now, the city that pays those pensions is 41% the size of the city they worked for. Oh, Detroit is now among the poorest cities in America in terms of per-capita income.
But yes, it was all the unions that made a million people leave Detroit during the last fifty years. -
Doing the math on this gif:
$951 million divided by 20,000 pensioners (roughly) divided by 20 years = $2,377.50 per pensioner per year.
SO LAVISH -
Passion you do lie. The stats lie...you can get stats to lie for whatever you'd like. We see it daily with this "great" economy.
Why did they leave off half of the budget, included that of public transportation, capital spending, and all sorts of other things? The largest state employee group is "Higher Education" with ~43% of the overall # of state employees? That's a boatload of $$$...wonder what counties those employees are and are not in.
On top of that...by simple economics the numbers will be skewed. Commuters by definition will generate income in the higher density areas where they work (via the Business and Occupation Tax) while any "benefits" they get will be from their location of residence. Same with most all large businesses (you think rural people only buy things like rural cars, or do they go to where they have a much better choice). And the opposite is true on things like Prisons (you know...another state function)...for some crazy reason they don't like putting those in heavily populated areas. So the state pays to have a prison out in a place like Connell, Walla Walla, and Monroe and ships all the people from the heavily populated places (we will assume with their passports) that get arrested there...magic, by your "measurement" its yet another rural handout since its the state spending money in that county.
Hey Passion...keep swallowing that Stranger Spooge...why think when you can regurgitate somebody else's lies?
-HH
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Arguing 'for' public unions reminds me of members selling the virtue of their local Elk's Club
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The hostility of middle-class Americans toward organizations that exist primarily to improve their bargaining position and benefits package never ceases to amaze me
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Public Unions should never serve that purpose. Private unions should and did once, but now the fact they are more Hoffa Jr. and stories like this and this and this and much less about their actual workers who they take money from is the reason they lost their way. Unfortunately that also meant they drove their industries toward irrelevance as well...AZDuck said:The hostility of middle-class Americans toward organizations that exist primarily to improve their bargaining position and benefits package never ceases to amaze me
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Corporations almost never steal. Except when they do.HoustonHusky said:
Public Unions should never serve that purpose. Private unions should and did once, but now the fact they are more Hoffa Jr. and stories like this and this and this and much less about their actual workers who they take money from is the reason they lost their way. Unfortunately that also meant they drove their industries toward irrelevance as well...AZDuck said:The hostility of middle-class Americans toward organizations that exist primarily to improve their bargaining position and benefits package never ceases to amaze me
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First off, you're moving the goalposts. Originally you said it was the 1970's ruling regarding public school integration that led Detroit to bankruptcy yet you go all the way back to 1960 to pull population numbers.
#2, since public sector unions exist to fleece everyone else not in said unions, they are hard to get rid of and downsize which means more of them stuck around to qualify for pensions.
#3, Detroit didn't start materially decreasing city teat suckers until 2004 so it took the city 30 years (40 if you want to cherry pick 1960 numbers and ignore your original assertion about the SC ruling) to go from roughly 25,000 to 19,000 workers. But if they were facing such a declining population that didn't need nearly as many services (and workers), why did it take them that long? Well, see #2.
#4, When the public sector unions and pensioners saw the writing on the wall in 2004, they finally relented to cutting head-count purely out of self-interest because at the end of the day, all they cared about was their pensions. That's why it only took them 9 years to reduce headcount from about 19,000 employees to under 10,000.
#5, It doesn't appear as though the $2,300+ bonus checks were inflation adjusted in the graph. Therefore the money they paid out each year (bonus for what, they suck off the teat of the government, are very difficult to fire, and have great pensions / healthcare benefits / early retirements) is much higher in 2015 dollars.
But go ahead, keep digging yourself deeper Quook.AZDuck said:http://archive.freep.com/article/20130908/NEWS01/309080062/Detroit-pension-13th-check-Chapter-9-bankruptcy-Kevyn-Orr
Unions are soooo eeeeevvvviilllll. Trying to get retirees $28,000/year instead of $25,000/year.
Turrible.
$1BN over twenty years during a period where cost-of-living increases and such weren't happening doesn't seem that bad.
Your other graph tells more of the story:
The population of Detroit in 1960 was 1,670,144. Detroit also had the highest per-capita income of any American city in 1960. The population of Detroit today is 688,701. So, a million more people lived in Detroit 54 years ago, and a much-larger city government existed to serve them. Those folks have retired. And now, the city that pays those pensions is 41% the size of the city they worked for. Oh, Detroit is now among the poorest cities in America in terms of per-capita income.
But yes, it was all the unions that made a million people leave Detroit during the last fifty years. -
The stranger article that Passion cited was over 3 years old.
#justincaseyoumissedit -
Are you talking about unions such as Boeing has that compete in the private sector or Public Sector Unions that exist to fleece everyone else not in government? That are not one and the same.
This should keep you busy for at least a little while, why don't you start a pole on this Husky Site and ask if people:
1) Support Public Sector Unions more than Private Sector Unions
2) Support Private Sector Unions more than Public Sector Unions
3) Think Public Sector Unions should've never been legal and that Private Sector Unions are fine.AZDuck said:The hostility of middle-class Americans toward organizations that exist primarily to improve their bargaining position and benefits package never ceases to amaze me
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#1 Hi. I was using your graphs about Detroit, one of which started in 1960.HFNY said:First off, you're moving the goalposts. Originally you said it was the 1970's ruling regarding public school integration that led Detroit to bankruptcy yet you go all the way back to 1960 to pull population numbers.
#2, since public sector unions exist to fleece everyone else not in said unions, they are hard to get rid of and downsize which means more of them stuck around to qualify for pensions.
#3, Detroit didn't start materially decreasing city teat suckers until 2004 so it took the city 30 years (40 if you want to cherry pick 1960 numbers and ignore your original assertion about the SC ruling) to go from roughly 25,000 to 19,000 workers. But if they were facing such a declining population that didn't need nearly as many services (and workers), why did it take them that long? Well, see #2.
#4, When the public sector unions and pensioners saw the writing on the wall in 2004, they finally relented to cutting head-count purely out of self-interest because at the end of the day, all they cared about was their pensions. That's why it only took them 9 years to reduce headcount from about 19,000 employees to under 10,000.
#5, It doesn't appear as though the $2,300+ bonus checks were inflation adjusted in the graph. Therefore the money they paid out each year (bonus for what, they suck off the teat of the government, are very difficult to fire, and have great pensions / healthcare benefits / early retirements) is much higher in 2015 dollars.
But go ahead, keep digging yourself deeper Quook.AZDuck said:http://archive.freep.com/article/20130908/NEWS01/309080062/Detroit-pension-13th-check-Chapter-9-bankruptcy-Kevyn-Orr
Unions are soooo eeeeevvvviilllll. Trying to get retirees $28,000/year instead of $25,000/year.
Turrible.
$1BN over twenty years during a period where cost-of-living increases and such weren't happening doesn't seem that bad.
Your other graph tells more of the story:
The population of Detroit in 1960 was 1,670,144. Detroit also had the highest per-capita income of any American city in 1960. The population of Detroit today is 688,701. So, a million more people lived in Detroit 54 years ago, and a much-larger city government existed to serve them. Those folks have retired. And now, the city that pays those pensions is 41% the size of the city they worked for. Oh, Detroit is now among the poorest cities in America in terms of per-capita income.
But yes, it was all the unions that made a million people leave Detroit during the last fifty years.
My poont is that white flight (which started in the 1960's and turned into a tidal wave after the Milliken case, is what killed Detroit. Not its public employees' union, which was a gnat on the regional economy in 1960 when things were still good and is (I'm certain) even less of a factor today. Most cities have public employees' unions, and most of them are doing fine, because most cities aren't shrinking to their 1914 population like Detroit has been doing (and getting poorer, relative to the rest of the country) for the last forty or so years.
#2 is just screed on your part. Public employees are hard to fire.
#3 is wrong. From your graph, looks like Detroit shed almost 7,000 employees from 1975-1985. Peak municipal employment was a bit more than 26,000 that in the early 1970's. Where I come from, 25% is a substantial reduction in force.
#4 So what? Everyone realized that the city was completely broke and there was nothing left to do but abandon ship.
#5 Huh? And the city is raking in 2015 dollars in taxes to pay its pension liabilities. WGAF?
The unions didn't make Whitey leave Detroit. Show me that they did, somehow. I'll be waiting right here. -
This bored is overwhelmingly right/libbertarian - so I think any pole would turn out the same way you think it would.HFNY said:Are you talking about unions such as Boeing has that compete in the private sector or Public Sector Unions that exist to fleece everyone else not in government? That are not one and the same.
This should keep you busy for at least a little while, why don't you start a pole on this Husky Site and ask if people:
1) Support Public Sector Unions more than Private Sector Unions
2) Support Private Sector Unions more than Public Sector Unions
3) Think Public Sector Unions should've never been legal and that Private Sector Unions are fine.AZDuck said:The hostility of middle-class Americans toward organizations that exist primarily to improve their bargaining position and benefits package never ceases to amaze me
Unions are unions. The only reason politicians are making hay about public sector unions is that they have been harder to kill than the private sector unions. If a workforce wants to unionize, they should be allowed to unionize. The movement to kill private unions and pensions has been so successful that people are now looking with envy at public sector employment which used to be derided as low-paying and unambitious because public employees still enjoy defined benefits pensions, reasonably-priced health insurance and middle-class wages. They are therefore a target for financial services assholes to consume, just like they have consumed so many private sector pension funds and shoved people into 401Ks which are basically a scam. -
AZ Duck's argument is that black folks can't make money in Detroit even though they were union workers at the auto plants and the unions make life good for you. Once whitey left it was all over. It has nothing to do with the reasons that whites left, shitty schools thanks to teacher's unions that protect horrible teachers and schools that don't protect students. Black who did make money left too. A corrupt government with a tax system that steals from producers to pay the corrupt politicians who are derelict in their duty is why there was "white flight". It actuality suburbs exploded all across America post war as people made more money.
But no, it was a court ruling. That's it -
Thanks but I can make my own arguments. Leave the straw men over there ----------------------------------------->RaceBannon said:AZ Duck's argument is that black folks can't make money in Detroit even though they were union workers at the auto plants and the unions make life good for you. Once whitey left it was all over. It has nothing to do with the reasons that whites left, shitty schools thanks to teacher's unions that protect horrible teachers and schools that don't protect students. Black who did make money left too. A corrupt government with a tax system that steals from producers to pay the corrupt politicians who are derelict in their duty is why there was "white flight". It actuality suburbs exploded all across America post war as people made more money.
But no, it was a court ruling. That's it
Cities are systems. Cities which have hollowed out like Detroit or St. Louis are no longer functioning, for whatever reason.
It's pretty funny how people are railing against the fact that a million people have moved out of Detroit since its peak in the early 1960s. That's a fact.
Was the city mismanaged? Sure.
So was New York. So is Seattle. New York even filed for bankruptcy as well. But nobody would claim that New York isn't very successful now.
White flight happened. For whatever reason. Good, bad or indifferent. Justified or not. It happened.
It didn't happen because of the fucking municipal public employee union. -
Nor because of a court ruling
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Exactly. I feel like I'm getting dumber by engaging AzDuck. The Supreme Court ruling he blames for bankrupting Detroi came down in 1974 and when I pointed out he was using population figures from 14 years earlier to further his argument about the 1974 ruling, he still couldn't understand where he erred.
He also doesn't understand that it didn't matter much that Detroit reduced headcount for 9 years because Public Union membership increased at other times (while the city was still losing population) before they declared bankruptcy many years later. It's all about the net jobs.
Lastly Race, I'm looking forward to AzDuck trying to explain this away and blame people who don't have much pigment in their skin (aka whitey) rather than aggressive public unions and city spending in the face of the much discussed declining population.
RaceBannon said:Nor because of a court ruling
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A million people leave a city - doesn't matter
A public employee union wastes some fraction of $1BN over twenty years - BANKRUPTCY
http://www.michbar.org/journal/pdf/pdf4article1911.pdf -
Now you're just speaking jibberish.AZDuck said:
A million people leave a city - doesn't matter
A public employee union wastes some fraction of $1BN over twenty years - BANKRUPTCY
http://www.michbar.org/journal/pdf/pdf4article1911.pdf -
You're just not understanding English-
Did the evil public employee unions cause a million people to move out of Detroit or not?
Sorry, but there isn't a "white flight" button that gets mashed. There were some riots and stuff in the 1960's, people started to leave, then there was a school busing plan that pissed a lot of people off, then there was the Millikan case, which turned a flood to the suburbs into a torrent.
Or you know, unions did it. Whatever. -
Do you even believe in the sanctity of contracts bro?HFNY said:Exactly. I feel like I'm getting dumber by engaging AzDuck. The Supreme Court ruling he blames for bankrupting Detroi came down in 1974 and when I pointed out he was using population figures from 14 years earlier to further his argument about the 1974 ruling, he still couldn't understand where he erred.
He also doesn't understand that it didn't matter much that Detroit reduced headcount for 9 years because Public Union membership increased at other times (while the city was still losing population) before they declared bankruptcy many years later. It's all about the net jobs.
Lastly Race, I'm looking forward to AzDuck trying to explain this away and blame people who don't have much pigment in their skin (aka whitey) rather than aggressive public unions and city spending in the face of the much discussed declining population.RaceBannon said:Nor because of a court ruling
One of your first points was the pension obligation of the city. Those remain long after the tax base has dissipated. It isn't the firefighter or police officer's fault that the city collapsed. They deserve the pensions they negotiated for and earned. Whether the pension was properly managed - I'll grant you that, even though it sounds like a rounding error against the GDP of metropolitan Detroit over 20 years.
Detroit collapsed because of white flight. Blame the white flight on whatever cause or boogieman you want. White flight killed Detroit, and Millikan was the Rubicon that, once crossed, meant that the city of Detroit would not recover. And it hasn't.
Whatever malgovernment Detroit has endured since 1974 just hastened the city's demise, it did not cause it.
1,000,000 people moving out did.
EDIT: case in point, I just looked at your chart. $1.4BN for pensions, $6.0BN for sewer and water infrastructure (that was built for a city 3x larger than it currently serves). -
AZDuck is making y'all look foolish.
